An article in Pacific
Standard, the standard-bearer of pop (social) science, decries “The Hidden
Sexism Lurking Behind the Pay Gap.” The teaser beneath clarifies the point: “Let’s stop arguing about how much of the
pay gap is due to women’s ‘choices.’ Those choices are often products of sexism hidden from view.” And what is wrong, for that matter, with women – or men, or those
adopting any gender-non-conformist self-definitions – not choosing career paths
which require mechanical drudgery, manipulating complex algorithms and abstractions,
taking incalculable risks with imaginary “investment” vehicles, bossing
underlings in the service of ethically dubious ends, etc.? And isn’t the bigger
problem hidden in the vastly disparate rewards bestowed by the market upon more
and less humane or caring service functions – to the point of sometimes rewarding
socially destructive profit maximization? This is, at least, what British
liberal theorist Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse was asking 100 years ago – but such utopian
musings have now gone the way of openly professed “social Darwinism.” So all
that is left is for everyone to get a shot at climbing as high as humanly
possible on the existing socioeconomic food-chain – or ladder, if a less laden
concept is in order.
